Chapter 2: First Battle

Isaac's breathing turned ragged as he stared at the monster in front of him. 'What is that doing here?' He thought frantically as his body filled with panic. As Isaac felt his mind turning irrational, he tried comforting himself as an attempt to calm himself down, all while making sure to not let out any sounds. 'Calm down. The monster hasn't noticed you just yet. We can still survive.'

Isaac wasn't an idiot. He knew that he stood no chance if he fought that thing head on. Not only was he completely defenseless in terms of otherworldly powers, he could also tell that although his current body wasn't out of shape, it wasn't fit either. Since he came from a peaceful world, he also didn't have any combat experience at all.

After swiftly weighing his chances, Isaac realized that he could only choose to run away as stealthily as possible and pray that the monster doesn't notice him.

Fortunately for Isaac, the faceless man hadn't noticed Isaac yet. Instead, he seemed to be rummaging through the kitchen shelves and mumbling to itself, searching for something. Isaac decided to take it as the perfect opportunity to run away. He figured that if the monster is focused on something else, it's a lot less likely for it to notice Isaac, so long as he makes sure to keep quiet.

He moved his legs slowly and carefully, so as to not alert the monster. With every step, he could feel his heartbeat getting louder and louder as uncertainty and panic invaded his thoughts. He could faintly hear the monster's mumbling, but he didn't let it take his focus away from his stealth.

THUMP!

By now, Isaac could feel his heart beating out of his chest. He knew that one wrong move could mean the end of his life. 'Why did a monster come to my house of all places?' He questioned in a sarcastic way to calm himself down. He didn't want to make mistakes because of his increasing fear.

THUMP!

Aside from the loud searching done by the monster and the occasional growls it let out, the house was completely silent. It was almost so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. However, to Isaac, it didn't feel quiet at all. His mind was filled with the sound of the monster's rummaging. The second it stops, Isaac knew it would mean the monster had noticed him.

THUMP!

As Isaac backed away, he knew his front door was getting closer and closer, but that was a part of his plan. He figured that even if he himself didn't have enough strength to combat the monster, then he could rely on the Psykers coming to pick him up.

With that in mind, he sneakily gripped his phone and took it out of his pocket and quickly glanced at it.

8:57 AM

'3 minutes. I just need to survive for 3 more minutes, and the Psykers will take care of it. Just 3 more minutes.' Isaac's plan was to stand in one place for the entire time and run out the front door the minute the clock turned to 9 AM. However, at that instant, his phone vibrated.

Bzzzzzzt!

Bzzzzzzt!

"You fu-" Isaac didn't get to finish his sentence as he felt a heavy blow, right in the middle of his stomach. "Ugh!" He grunted as blood flew out of his mouth.

ROAR!

The monster, which stopped rummaging the second it heard the phone ringing and rushed towards Isaac, let out a muffled roar.

"Haah, haah." Panting hard, Isaac started formulating a plan in his head. 'Ok, ok, think Isaac, think! Looking at this monster, it seems like it only relies on its physical strength to fight. If that's the case, I still stand a chance! I just need to dodge its attacks.'

Of course, it wasn't a good plan, but it was definitely a plan.

And so, acting on whatever little hope he had, Isaac began to focus entirely on the monster and let his instincts take over.

Isaac forced his breathing to turn steady and his eyes to turn sharp. Then, he stood there, like a predator stalking its prey.

"Grrr!" The monster growled as reeling its arm back to punch. At that moment, everything around Isaac slowed down to the point of almost coming to a halt.

Sweat dripped off of Isaac's face as he whispered under his breath. "I'm not going down without a fight."

A multitude of light blue, transparent lines appeared in front of Isaac, each of them originating from the monster's arm that was preparing the punch. Some of the lines were heading straight for Isaac while others stretched out to the spaces around him.

As Isaac saw those lines, he started calculating the probabilities in his head. 'If what I'm told about monsters is accurate, then this one can't be too intelligent, since intelligence and strength correspond to each other, and if a monster can't take out a normal human in a single punch, there's no way it can be too intelligent. That means it's not going to try to predict movement from me and aim straight for me. This narrows down the possibilities for my next move quite a lot...'

This was Isaac's special ability, the ability to predict all the next possible attacks of an opponent. He accomplishes this by following many aspects of the enemy's attack, such as the trajectory of the attack, the power behind it, the angle, as well as even the intent of the enemy.

To Isaac, it seems as if the enemy's attacks are a multitude of lines, lines that represent an infinite amount of possibilities. However, these lines on their own mean nothing if the user of this ability doesn't have the mental capacity to keep up with them, but for Isaac, this is a simple task.

'...and that narrows the area of the punch of be right here!' Isaac, after many calculations, came to the conclusion that the punch would land straight in the middle of his stomach once again. Using this prediction, Isaac began to move his body to avoid the attack.

One more important thing to note about Isaac's ability is that, in order to use it properly, the user's body has to be incredibly fast. Isaac was able to achieve this natural speed thanks to countless years of dedication, exercising every free minute he got. Even then, to face harder enemies, Isaac needs speed supplements just to match the speed of his body to the speed of his brain.

Isaac didn't account for this, and the reason for this was simple: his instincts failed him. Although he's now been living in another body for the past day, he was still used to his previous body. Because of this, he overestimated how fast he could move and attempted to dodge that way, but since his new body wasn't trained for speed like his past one was, it didn't work.

Pow! The punch hit Isaac straight on his side. Although the monster was originally aiming for Isaac's stomach again, it missed due to Isaac's attempted dodge. Even if Isaac didn't have enough speed to fully dodge the attack, he could at least reduce the damage it would produce as much as he could.

Isaac's focus was instantly shattered as his breathing turned ragged again. The area of Isaac's body that was hit by the monster's attack was exposed, producing a pool of blood. At this point, he knew that he stood no chance. Even if, by some miracle, the monster just leaves, Isaac would die to blood loss, especially with the amount of blood leaking from his side.

Despite all of this, Isaac was able to keep the sharp look in his eye. This was a sign that he had not given up yet. 'If I can just hold out for another few minutes-Cough!-it might be possible for me to survive.'

Amidst coughing out blood, Isaac could see that the monster seemed to have started heading back to the kitchen, muttering something incoherent. It was the only thing that gave Isaac hope.

'Alright Isaac, stay quiet. This is it, this is our last chance.' He thought to himself as he felt the house around him get more and more blurry.

'Ah, who am I kidding, there's no way I'm getting out of this one. So this is how it ends, huh? After all those adventures, the thing that does me in is some monster in another world? Grandpa would be so mad if he found out.' Isaac thought with a smile. 'Although I guess this isn't too bad.'

The last thing Isaac saw before his vision turn black was a blinding light, bursting through his front door, as well a herd of people rushing in, all of them wearing matching, black uniforms. Isaac realized that the Psykers had arrived. Unfortunately, it was already too late for him.

'What a pity.' This was the only thought in Isaac's mind as his heart slowed to a halt.